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AN OPEN LETTER 



TO 



Col. Robert G. Ingersoll 




W. W. STICKLEY 



BY 



BALTIMORE 
1894 






Copies can be had by addressing : 

"W. W. STICKLEY, 

BALTIMORE, MD." 



AN OPEN LETTER 

to Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. 

I see your ad. in the papers. This proves that 
you are in the infidel business for selfish 
reasons — to make money and to become famous. 
Indeed, we might as well say you are. in it for 
revenue only. Now, please to read and answer : 

I. You do not know that there is not a hell. 
Don't you think, therefore, that it is a pretty mean 
business to persuade other men, just for the sake 
of putting 50 cents or a dollar in your pocket, 
to run the fearful risk of there being one? You 
are aware of the general detestation in which 
saloon-keepers are held. Their shops are en- 
listing-stations of hell, and the proprietors 
are the devil's recruiting officers. They ruin 
character and they blast the home; they de- 
grade the citizen and endanger government ; 
they fill our jails and insane asylums, and they 
send men to Hell for the price of a drink. Their 
work is world-wide, and they do it well. They 



need no assistance, but you give them aid. 
They fatten and thrive on the price of blood, and 
the v thirty pieces " find their way to you. You 
hold the cup to your neighbors* lips, and even 
in your books you urge them to drink. For 
money the Son of Man was sold, and for money 
you sell the sons of men. 

2. You infidels want to be equal with God, 
although you know you are merely His creatures 
and never can be anything else. Itis a condition 
that confronts you, and not a theory. Is there 
any escape from it ? Suppose you could induce 
every man on earth to declare himself as good as 
God and to say that he would not allow any one, 
even God himself, to dictate to him as to how 
he should live. What would be your reputation 
for intelligence among the inhabitants of other 
planets ? Would they be apt to term you D. F.'s 
(doctors of filosophy) ? What would you think 
of the concoction of such a wretched farce? 
Would it not make you laugh, even at yourselves, 
as a set of asses ? Suppose you should adopt a 
foundling and give him a good home; that 
you raised him tenderly and carefully, edu- 
cating him and starting him in some profession 
and doing everything you could to make him 
happy and his life successful. Then suppose 



this friendless child, when arrived at maturity, 
should conceive a dislike for you and spend his 
time in misrepresenting and slandering you, 
trying to prejudice people against you, and doing 
everything he could to make you out the worst 
man in the whole community. What would you 
think of such conduct? Yet is not this just 
what you are doing toward God ? Are not the 
brain and the voice with which you blaspheme 
Him, and the breath that moves that voice, gifts 
from your own kind Creator? Really, are you 
not ashamed of yourself? 

3. The soul of man is by nature evil, and the 
sorrow of the world is the fruit of the evil. Do 
you think that men are not bad enough ? Will 
you make them worse for half a dollar? 

4. There are millions of knaves who are not 
criminals ; there are millions of sluggards who 
earn their bread; there are millions of hypocrites 
who yet are sincere, and there are millions of 
wantons who are virtuous. A puzzle it seems, 
but the mystery's plain — these all look beyond 
to a judgment to come; not more than others 
do they virtue love, but they conquer nature 
through the fear of God. Not laws and stripes, 
and judges and dungeons, but God and religion, 
and Heaven and Hell — these are the fountains 



of virtue alone, and not from the thoughts of 
men do they spring. Would you close these 
fountains if you had the power, and, if you would 
do it, will you tell me why ? 

5. It is not you or your words that make you 
converts ; it is the vices of men that effect your 
triumphs. You are more successful than Chris- 
tian teachers, but be not therefore with pride 
elated. You float with the current, but they 
struggle against it; you are going down hill, 
they are going up ; you tell men to do what they 
want to do ; they tell them to do what they ought 
to do : And the glory is not yours, but Sin's. 
Restraint of the passions and evil desires — what 
man ever preached that and was not despised ? 

6. Power and wealth come by force and fraud. 
Is not this why men hate religion ? 

7. Dante said that in his day the " loudest 
laugh of Hell " was caused by seeing men sell 
their souls to the Devil for an opportunity to 
become rich. Do you not think it likely that 
the loudest laugh is now excited by attempts to 
abolish Hell by saying " I don't believe in it" ? 
By saying " There is no Hell," can you do away 
with Hell ? 



P. S. — To Mr. I tiger soil: 

So far as the Bible is concerned, all the argu- 
ments of atheists and infidels of every school, 
the fault-findings of every heart that is " enmity 
against God," are summed up by Milton (cer- 
tainly a respectable authority) in some words 
like these: " God foreknew sin, and permitted 
it," and, " I did not ask to be born." Very well. 
Now, suppose God, with whom all things are 
possible, before He created Adam and the other 
creatures with whom He intended to people the 
earth, sun, moon and other planets, had said to 
them : " I shall create you, and put you on 
worlds, which I shall make, to live. I will do 
everything I can to make you happy; but I will 
be your God, and you must obey Me. If you dis- 
obey me, and do not repent, I shall shut you up 
in a place of misery, and leave you there to end- 
less torment." Do you think that any of them 
would have asked not to be created ? But sup- 
pose they did — what was God to do ? Was 
His plan of creation to be frustrated ? Was He 
to leave this great universe a formless void, just 
because some of His creatures, by their own per- 
verseness, would bring upon themselves eternal 
punishment? Was He to deny the pleasure of 
existence to all that innumerable host who would 



obey Him, just because there were some who 
would not? Honestly, now, Mr. Ingersoll, 
would not that be expecting a great deal of God ? 
In short, would it not be a sublimity of assurance 
and impudence that is. almost inconceivable? 
What would you think of Adam asking the Lord 
not to create this great and glorious world just 
because he, Adam, did not want Him to do it ? — 
and all this, remember, when there was no 
4$ necessity for Adam to sin — when he could obey 
and be happy, or disobey and be miserable, just 
as he pleased. Come, now, w T hat do you think 
of such a proceeding? What sort of justice 
w r ould that be to God, as well as the creatures 
that wanted to live? 

Do not think that I am vain enough to suppose 
i that I can argue with you. You havextalent£_ 
^ anc>4earning, and your whole life has been filled 
with disputes and controversies. I have none of 
these advantages, and I could not use them as 
well as you if I had them, because I, as a pro- 
fessing Christian (unlike you), am handicapped 
by the necessity of speaking the truth. There 
is no doubt in my mind that if you should deign 
to notice this paper you would very quickly 
make me a laughing-stock for all of Baltimore. 
I should not feel the least discomfiture, however, 



if you did. It is an easy matter to crush Truth 
to earth. It is done daily in the press, the forum, 
the courts, and, I am sorry to say, also in the 
pulpit. I am willing to be made an object of 
public derision, but I will see that attention is 
called to the fact that truth has been sacrificed 
for the sake of money. I shall let it be known 
that there is an advance-agent of the Devil in 
town, and I shall also have something to say 
about the kind of firm you are working for, and 
the business it does. 

To the business men of Baltimore : 

Think how dangerous it would be to your 
interests to have your employes infidels. Which 
would you rather have working for you — a Chris- 
tian, with the love of God, the hope of Heaven 
and the fear of Hell, in his heart, or an intelli- 
gent beast, with all the knowledge for the doing 
of wrong but none of the conscience to keep 
him from it? Which would be more likely to 
serve you well and to work for you as he would 
for himself? Which would be more likely to 
waste your time and substance and to steal from 
you if he got the chance? " Let us eat, drink 
and be merry, for to-morrow we die." Convince 
a servant that this is the true philosophy of life, 
and who will most probably settle his bills ? 



To the young men of Baltimore : 

How would you like to believe that your 
wives and sweethearts, mothers and sisters are 
like so many mares, or cows, or sows, or bitches, 
only more intelligent ; that when they die, that 
is the end of them, as it is of other animals; that 
all the love the}^ have lavished upon you, all the 
hopes they have centered in you, arid all the 
prayers they have offered for you, are, after all, 
but tomfoolery? — and all this, remember, in 
defiance of reason, as well as the Bible. Not a 
single miracle recorded in God's Word has ever 
been disproved. Learn to notice the difference 
between denying a thing and disproving it. 
Observe, also, that ridicule is no argument. 

To the women of Baltimore : 

Read history, and you will find that in heathen 
lands you are, and always have been, slaves ; in 
Christian countries you are queens. Why is 
this? 

To all the citizens of Baltimore : 

11 Any government is better than none/' This 
is an axiom with jurists. How would you like 
to live in a community of infidels? Is not any 
religion better than none ? 



Judged by the effects of their visit to this city, 
which would you rather have among you — a 
man \jho is suffering from cholera, or one affected 
with Ingersollism ? 

W. W. Stickley, 

Dec. 17, 1894. Baltimore, Md. 



RD- 



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